Our Sustainability Journey
Waste Diversion
Tasti has partnered with EnviroWaste to help reduce landfill waste across our site. Annually, we undertake a waste audit and analyse what we are throwing away, identifying opportunities to reduce, recycle
and re-use.
In 2017 the waste audit highlighted a large number of wrapped bars and bulk bags (used for intermediate products) that were being disposed of via landfill. Working with EnviroWaste we found a company that can strip wrapped bars leaving just the food stuff. After confirming that all products were fit for animal consumption (to put back into the food chain) we began to divert all wrapped bars way from landfill to animal feed. The excess bulk bags were diverted to a company that makes plastic decking and fence posts when they weren’t reused internally to collect the diverted wrapped bar waste. In the first full year
of these changes (2018) we saw a decrease in landfill of 100 tonnes and an increase in diversion of 12%.
In 2019 the waste audit made us realise that we were placing a large volume of recyclable cardboard into the general waste bins and set a project to rethink the way we work. With a small investment, Tasti moved to point of source collection which is essentially fit-for-purpose cardboard bins at the point where the cardboard waste was produced. Throw in a bit of change management and 4 years later we are still diverting +/-80,000kg’s of cardboard that was historically headed to landfill.
Working with EnviroWaste has also brought energy behind Recycling Week, which each year helps to drum up activity across our site. In 2020, taking a similar approach to production, an office waste audit showed us that personalised bins drove poor recycling habits as well as using a massive amount of plastic bags. Centralising waste collection points around the office was the ticket for change and this was rolled out as a way of working in all departments.
From the beginning of 2023, our focus has been on identifying, measuring, and reducing waste volumes in a number of less visible forms. Syrups and choc were an unknown source of waste and although we quickly established a collection and path for recycling, in July, we launched a project to reduce choc waste. Over the course of 3 months, we managed to restore basic conditions and problem-solve to improve design, reducing the waste by 48% (comparing a 5-month average before and after the project).
